


An Encroaching Darkness

by Nocturniquette



Category: Fable (Video Games), Fable 2 (Video Game), Fable 3 (Video Game)
Genre: First Fable fic, Gen, I hope you like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 01:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13156665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nocturniquette/pseuds/Nocturniquette
Summary: Logan dreams of the future. Prince Liam is acting oddly. The Crawler senses imminent danger. And Reaver? Reaver wonders who keeps leaving that blasted snowglobe in his house.A time travel story where the Hero got it wrong the first time because he was too scared of his brother to do the right thing. Now, he's older and wiser and he's not about to let Albion fall a second time.Not even Theresa had foreseen this!





	An Encroaching Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say? I adore time travel and I overuse that plot device so much it's absurd.

Disclaimer: I own nothing you see. I just like to toss my muses into the sandbox and see what happens. AN: It always bothered me in the game that the Hero was more worried/scared/nervous about Logan than they were the Crawler. It just never sat well with me. And that is how this little story got started. I was replaying Fable 3 yet again when I noticed how scared the Hero was of Logan but not the Crawler. The way that the Hero tended to cringe when Logan spoke to them or shied away. And this led me to start thinking. (That never ends well lol) Anyway, I thought to myself: If the Hero was that scared of Logan than how could they possibly square off against an entity like Crawler? How would they be able to summon the courage to defeat that thing but not be able to stand up to their own brother? In this story, the Prince didn't. He was not able to summon the strength, the courage needed to fulfill his destiny, because he was still too afraid of what Logan might think/say about him. But now the Prince is back before it all happens and he's not about to be anyone's doormat. Just thought I'd give you an explanation into my thoughts for this story and where it might be heading.

 

* * *

 

   Logan tossed and turned in his purple and red bed, hands clenching tightly into the sheets.  
Sweat dotted his forehead and at his temples. Tiny whimpers escaped a thin mouth that had a scar through it.  
He was remembering the night he entered the Auroran cave and came upon such evil that he lost an entire squadron of well-trained men.

It went how it always did: He went into the darkness, at this point in time, knowing what was coming. But no matter how many times he tried to escape the clutches of the inky blackness and the evil that wielded it, the dream ended the same.  
Everyone in it died, including him. The Crawler always saved him for last though. Logan had never hated nor feared such a thing before as he did this malevolent being.  
It couldn't be reasoned with, it couldn’t be halted, it couldn’t be killed.  
The only thing it wanted was the world’s total destruction. No, the only thing to do was to destroy everything before the Crawler did.

He didn’t want to destroy everything his father built, but he had little choice. The blind seer hadn’t really given him much of one after all. It was kill or be killed.  
He didn’t have the time to play nice. Not with Albion at stake. It was either tyranny or death. He was doing this for the good of all people, everywhere. They would know his sacrifices. And they would applaud him.  
He just wished he could tell someone...show them that he wasn’t doing this to be cruel...but because he had to.

 _The dream sequence suddenly shifted and warped around him. Logan blinked, finding himself floating near his brother’s sleeping form._  
_The King looked around, his fear rocketing up a notch. This had never happened before. It had always been him and his men in the cave far away in the desert._  
_His dream had never showed him his little brother before. Logan whirled at the skittering sound of many feet pattering in the darkness._  
_The curtain fluttered and he turned towards it. The sky was pitch black; there were no stars in the sky. The inky blackness he came to dread was everywhere and yet it hadn’t yet touched the bed or the figure in it. From ceiling to floor it rose, covering everything and drowning it._  
_“ **Such innocence. Such light.”** came the voice that made Logan freeze where he stood._

 _He slowly turned around and what he saw would the fuel the nightmares he had for the rest of his life. The Crawler himself was standing over his still sleeping brother, all six of the creature’s dark malevolent eyes focused on the bright white light that enveloped his younger sibling._  
_The thing moved in closer, but was shocked and angry when it was rebuffed by the glow. It let out loud angry shout and Logan covered his ears._  
_Prince Liam opened his eyes and Logan expected him to scream in terror at the sight of the Crawler looming over him._  
_He was therefore quite surprised when his brother glared up at the entity, tattoos that he hadn’t noticed before standing out starkly against his skin as they glowed a very bright whitish blue. Before he could really register what was going on, Liam suddenly took out a sword and charged the creature, a bright orange fireball in the palm of his other hand._

 _“NO! LIAM! NO, IT’LL KILL YOU!” Logan screamed at his foolish sibling. Logan tried to reach out and stop him, but his legs were stuck and he couldn’t move._  
_He could only watch in horror as his brother faced off against the evil that tormented his mind daily. At first, the battle seemed to be tipped into Liam’s favor._  
_Liam would hit the Crawler with a fireball which seemed to cause it immense pain if it’s shrieks were anything to go by.  
Then he would swing his weapon through it, causing deep wounds that bled inky darkness everywhere like billowing smoke. He was too stunned to register the fact that his brother had their father’s abilities..._

 _But then, coming from the darkness were the Crawler’s shadowed children who surrounded Liam. Logan watched as Liam battled through them, but no matter how many he killed, the damn things kept coming. For every one Liam sent back to hell, four more took it’s place. It was a battle Liam was going to lose._  
L _ogan cursed his strategic mind. He didn’t want to know Liam’s chances of failure._  
_Liam was too busy fending off the shadow children to stop the Crawler’s attack. Logan watched in horrified fascination as the Crawler tilted his brother’s head back before shoving a large black bolt of pure darkness down inside of him. Liam **screamed.**_

_Loud, agonizing wails came from his brother’s throat as he collapsed to his knees, sword falling from limp fingers. Liam’s natural smoky brown/blue eyes were now overlapped with the darkest black that Logan had ever seen. It was pouring out of his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his ears….it was coming from everywhere; trying to conquer the now small florescent light still shielding his brother._

_**“GIVE ME YOUR LIGHT! I MUST HAVE YOUR LIGHT!”** The Crawler screamed in his brother’s face. Liam shook, his body trembling in the hands of the creature before him._  
_He looked like a marionette with it’s strings cut... “I...won’t...surrender...” Liam somehow choked out._  
_“ **You are like the rest of them now. Tainted. Broken. Join your friends and family in darkness!”** The Crawler was relentless with it’s words._

_Logan could do nothing but watch as his brother slowly faltered under the continuous onslaught._  
_“You can do it, Liam! I believe in you!” he shouted. He didn’t know if his brother could hear him or not; but that wasn’t going to stop him._  
_The Crawler took it’s eyes away from his brother to stare at him. The creature grinned at him. There was no other word for the large grotesque smile it bore that was too big for it’s face._

_**“Oh...the King has come to play my children!”** It laughed loudly and horribly. The shadows hissed in amusement at him. Logan felt the snarl grow on his face.  
“ **Do you like what you see King of Nothing? Do you like what I have done to him?”** It laughed again and Logan fervently wished he could cast a fireball so he could lob it in the hateful thing’s oversized maw. _

_The Crawler had spent so much time paying attention to Logan and not enough to the captive in his grasp. It was therefore shocked when a massive fireball lit it’s face on fire. The monster roared in agony and madness as it twitched and writhed upon the ground._  
_Liam, having been dropped to the ground, coughed out the liquid like darkness in his body; gasping and choking on the wrongness._  
_The Crawler had disappeared, taking it’s evil children with it. For the moment._

_Logan found he could move again and he rushed over to his brother’s side. He reached for Liam. Only when his hand touched his brother did something happen.  
Liam’s body jerked and he threw his head back and screamed. Black tar came from everywhere at once, bypassing Logan who was right to next to the Prince. Logan tried to reach for his brother again, but he seemed miles away even though he was right in front of him. _

_**“Your light! I WILL PUT IT OUT!”** came the thunderous roar. Liam continued to scream, raking his fingernails down his face leaving blood trails._  
_He was still managing to scream despite choking on the evil invading his body. “Make...it...stop...I can’t….” Liam pleaded. “LOGAN!!” Liam screamed and then collapsed face first into the dirt. (When had the scene changed? How had he not noticed it?)_  
_When the darkness dissipated, Liam’s body was nothing more than a husk. The pure light that protected him had vanished._  
_The Crawler laughed in triumph. **“He’s one of us now.”**_

“LIAM!” Logan abruptly woke up, face covered in sweat and tears; his body was trembling uncontrollably.  
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed and planted his feet onto the carpeted floor.  
He put his head in his hands and took several deep breaths. He closed his eyes and wished the fragments of his dream away or tried to.  
After several tense minutes had passed, Logan felt more like himself again. He was still rather shaken over his dream, but it wasn’t an all encompassing fear any longer.

He could actually think rationally now. And his mind was telling him to check on his little brother. That dream had been too real...so terrifyingly real...he needed to make sure.  
He would give himself this indulgence. In the wee hours of the morning when no one would see his worry or his fear. It was safer this way.

For everyone.

But especially for Liam.

**Author's Note:**

> NO SLASH.  
> Anyway, please let me know what you think of the first chapter!


End file.
